What is so special about Saint Bernadette that she was chosen as the little messenger of the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes? Nothing! And in fact, many are surprised that the Madonna appeared to such an “ordinary” girl. When she arrives in Nevers, one postulant even says, “Is this all Bernadette is?” And she, with the utmost simplicity, replies, “Yes, Bernadette is all there is.” The same thing happens when they show her a photograph of herself, put up for sale in Lourdes for two pennies, and she comments, “Clearly, even in photographs I’m really not worth much!”
Bernadette is poor and ordinary, but she has a wealth, a treasure:“I was nothing, and from this nothing Jesus has done something great… Therefore I must live by Jesus, and have the same purpose [avere] as Jesus himself.” This reveals what makes Saint Bernadette so special!
An ordinary girl
Marie Bernarde Soubirous, known as Bernadette, was born on January 7, 1844, in Lourdes, a town in the Pyrenees, the eldest child of a marginalized family known for its poverty and destitution, to the point of not even having a home; in fact, they live in a cell of a former prison, the “cachot,” an unhealthy and dark place.
Bernadette has delicate health, is uneducated, can barely read, and only later learns to write. She does not have a good memory and cannot even learn the catechism formulas, which is why she is not admitted to First Communion. Although ignorant of religion, Bernadette knows the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Creed by heart. She knows how to pray the Rosary, and it becomes her school.
“Aquerò”
Bernadette sees her life change forever on February 11, 1858. At the age of 14, while gathering firewood near the Massabielle grotto with her sister Marie Toinette and a friend (just outside the village of Lourdes), she has her first vision of “a small young Lady dressed in white.” She then appears to her seventeen more times. The last is on July 16 of that year.
The “Beautiful Lady” wears a blue sash and “has a Rosary on her arm,” and, while Bernadette prays, she lets the beads run through her hands without moving her lips. At Lourdes, the Madonna recommends the Rosary not with words, but by example.
Bernadette calls her “Aquerò,” which in the local dialect means “That one over there,” since she does not really know how to define her. In the message of February 24, the Lady says to Bernadette three times: “Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for the conversion of sinners!” The heart of the message of Lourdes calls for conversion, prayer, and penance.
During the apparition on March 25, 1858, the Lady finally reveals her name: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Four years earlier, Pope Pius IX had declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, but Bernadette certainly could not have known this.
«Like a grain of wheat…»
During the third apparition, on 18 February, the Lady dressed in white speaks to her, saying: «I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next». Bernadette experiences this when, in 1866, she becomes a nun in the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, a convent attended by daughters of the bourgeoisie, where admission requires bringing a substantial dowry. Bernadette, extremely poor, is accepted without enthusiasm, and only because the bishop sends her there.
She spends thirteen years in the convent in Nevers as an ordinary nun, fully living out the messages she received from the Virgin: prayer and penance for the conversion of sinners. «I will not live a moment without loving», we read in the Saint’s secret notes.
In the convent, the other nuns always misunderstand her, mocking her for her ignorance and subjecting her to constant humiliation. The novice mistress, Maria Teresa Vazou, also inflicts humiliations and suffering on her. Summing up her spiritual journey, she says: «I came here (to Nevers) to hide myself. The Blessed Virgin used me like a broom used by a housewife to clean, which is then put back in its place; I am happy about that».
She spends long periods in the infirmary, afflicted by a tumour in her knee and pulmonary tuberculosis, which cause her great suffering. «I am being ground down – she says – like a grain of wheat».
She dies on 16 April 1879, at the age of 35. Bernadette has learned and, above all, experienced what the Blessed Virgin told her during the third apparition: «I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next».
The incorrupt body
Bernadette is buried in a grave dug in the ground, in a chapel in the convent garden. Everything suggests that her body would have quickly decomposed; instead, defying every physical law, that small body (Bernadette was 1 metre and 42 centimetres tall) remains intact. And when, in preparation for the beatification process, the body is exhumed, everyone present witnesses the miracle. The body is not only intact, but also flexible, fresh and supple.
144 years have passed since Bernadette’s death, and her body remains intact. Anyone can see it. It is displayed in a glass casket in the church of the motherhouse of the “Sisters of Charity” in Nevers.
The entire life of this “little” saint can be summed up in one of her prayers: «O my Mother, may my heart, lost in yours, have no other desire, no other love than the will of my divine Master… May I begin here below the eternal amen of those who already live happily».
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